Work Text:
Emily likes looking at the stars. They are near perfect, whatever side of the world she is sat on, when she clings on with only gravity.
There were other things that kept her grounded, too.
JJ likes looking at Emily. Her eyes, dark like the sky they reflect, watching the pins of light dart across the earth.
It isn't an impossible task - stargazing. It's seeing patterns and shapes others don't think to look for. (Slowly, JJ realises why she became a profiler.) What's impossible is focusing when she can sense Emily's eyes buried in some crevice on her face or another, memorising the shape of her nose, the tilt of her jaw, the stretch of her lips when she tells her to,
"Stop it."
They stretch even wider into a cheshire-like smile. Too wide.
"Stop what?"
"You know what. Stop. I'm trying to look."
"So am I."
She lets her for a minute longer, knowing any time they have together is leniently borrowed at best. Their life together was a constellation of stolen twinkling moments.
"Emily?"
"Yes?"
"What's wrong?"
The night is quiet, as always. JJ lays in Emily's lap.
"I love you."
"Em..." Emily is trying to kill her, again.
"I do."
"You can't."
Emily stares, incredulous, "How could I not?” It quickly morphs into rage. “No, really! Tell me! Because if there's another way I could be, that I could feel,"
"Emily, please." She is too tired to fight.
"I'm sorry..." It isn't enough. She never was. "This is wrong and you have a baby. But Jennifer, tell me the truth. Is there anything like what you feel when you're with me?
She sat up, "Em, being around you... it's like watching the sun... like watching it die." JJ looks away as the older agent's face contorts in anguish. "Like seeing a wild animal adjusted to its life, stuck on a short leash." She busies herself in uprooting the grass between her fingers.
Destroy the foundation where you lay, her mind hisses, burn your bridges. Smart girl.
"JJ..." Her voice cracks, like it always does when they talk about this stuff.
"It's like... it's like I'm your leash. Your anchor. You could do so much more, be so much, love someone so much more if I wasn't stealing all of it. All of you-"
"JJ, I love you." The confession is wet and tired, exhausted from its constant reappearance.
Emily will never stop telling JJ she loves her. JJ will never stop running in the other direction.
JJ looks away. "I know," she whispers.
"Don't you love me?" begs Emily, like she has begged before.
"Of course. You know I always..." She can't bring herself to finish her sentence. It lodges tight and steals her breath like a syphon. "Emily, there's no one in the world who has my heart like you do. No one on earth."
"Then why-" her voice cracks again. Her eyes have never been dry. "JJ, I'm alone."
"I know."
"Do you? Hotch has Jack, his family, you have yours, Morgan and Reid and Garcia; they all have each other and I am alone."
Emily is surrounded by solitude and the crashing silence of peace is devastating.
She ambles about her house, to the tune of closing cupboard doors and echoey humming.
She haunts her own four walls, burdened with the knowledge neither heaven or hell has a place cold enough for her.
Wake up, get ready, drive to work, go back home, back into limbo's empty space.
Repeat.
The monotony would be comforting, if it wasn't so derailing.
JJ growls through gritted teeth, "I know."
This swallows them for a moment.
JJ's house is full and raucous but she lives alone in walls she builds around herself.
In a way, her routine was no different.
- Wake up. (You love your husband.)
- Get ready. (You love your husband.)
- Get Henry ready. (You have a family.)
- Go to work and help people. (People expect things from you.)
- Come home to your husband and child. (They mean more than some false fantasy).
Repeat.
JJ lays back down, beside her this time, and Emily finds herself missing the weight of her.
It isn't something Emily has ever considered.
While she wallowed in her own maddening grief, she had been secure in the fact at least one of them was happy.
Had been.
"I would spend forever with you," confesses Emily to the dead of night.
JJ almost frowns, "Forever's a long time."
"Not nearly long enough."
JJ sighs, like she's disappointed. She turns her head up to face the other woman, watches for a moment, before turning back and sighing once more, only this one is heavier.
Emily doesn't know how she could feel any heavier.
"I love you," Emily eventually whispers.
She sighs, "What does it matter?"
Emily doesn't know.
Emily is silent on the way home. She doesn’t even remember stumbling into bed.
When Emily wakes up, she doesn't know if the previous night was a memory, or a nightmare gone awry - suddenly turned pleasant.
Emily doesn't even want to consider the last possibility. That the previous night had happened, on schedule.
That she had begged JJ to love her again.
And that she had adamantly refused, again.
As if repeating the lie could make it any less false.